Comments on: How To Completely & Securely Erase Your Hard Drive

By: Florence

Florence — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 05:58:00 +0000

I have a request, please write an article how to completely erase off handycam’s hard drive. Many people need to know this before selling off their handycams or giving it to some friend temporarily. How can we completely erase handycam’s hard drive so that others cannot recover old video files anymore?

By: Richard C.

Richard C. — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:58:18 +0000

This will not work, have tried itâ€¦ This will fool certain recovery programs though.

By: Richard C.

Richard C. — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:57:37 +0000

Sorry, Clicked the wrong “Reply to this comment”

By: Richard C.

Richard C. — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:56:03 +0000

This will not work, tried it… This will fool certain recovery programs though.

By: Mike Fagan

Mike Fagan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:48:18 +0000

That could work, but leaves some security questions up in the air. Like I said before, if you want to make sure, nothing beats a DBAN run and physical destruction.

By: Mike Fagan

Mike Fagan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:47:17 +0000

True safety is never letting it fall into the wrong hands to begin with. Good point!

By: Mike Fagan

Mike Fagan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:46:26 +0000

Thanks for the heads up. Encryption, though pretty thorough, would not be as complete as a quick run of DBAN though.

By: Mike Fagan

Mike Fagan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:45:10 +0000

Thanks for the information. I myself found DBAN to be quite thorough.

By: Mike Fagan

Mike Fagan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:44:20 +0000

Good Tip!

By: Tahsin Kocaman

Tahsin Kocaman — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:33:33 +0000

What about formatting the disk with different file system, such as ext4 of Linux?
You can also fill the the disk with random files after 1st format then reformat again.

By: Richard C.

Richard C. — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:14:02 +0000

Even after a DOD method format data is alway recoverable. You can also recover after a magnet swipe. I you are scaried your data is not safe do not trow the drive away, this also goes for USB drive

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:41:14 +0000

The University of Southern California San Diego developed a drive wiping program for the National Institute of Standards and Technology that erases hard drives including their alternate tracks It can be found at http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml and is FREE

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:41:14 +0000

By: Ronny

Ronny — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:19:54 +0000

You may also use Truecrypt and simply choose the “Encrypt system Partition/Drive” option on that specific hard drive. I guess this will have the same effect on data previously stored on the drive… It will be fully erased! Check http://truecrypt.org

By: Ronny

Ronny — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:19:54 +0000

You may also use Truecrypt and simply choose the "Encrypt system Partition/Drive" option on that specific hard drive. I guess this will have the same effect on data previously stored on the drive... It will be fully erased! Check http://truecrypt.org